


A Tremor of Intent

by Quarantime_Blues



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarantime_Blues/pseuds/Quarantime_Blues
Summary: She was his student. His responsibility. And she'd been raped on his watch.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	A Tremor of Intent

**Author's Note:**

> A/N
> 
> This is really just a lost scene from my other fanfic, Bartleby. I'd initially planned a number of scenes from Snape's POV, but abandoned them because I just didn't feel very confident in my ability to write him. I still don't, really, but this was fun to write on the side while I work out some issues in Bartleby (Read: Perfectionism).
> 
> Anyway, I probably won't continue this unless there's a great deal of interest.
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated.
> 
> This is a fanfic, standard disclaimers apply. I own nothing. Even the title – "A Tremor of Intent" – is from an Anthony Burgess novel.

A Tremor of Intent

* * *

What struck him most was how very small the girl looked.

The hearing was an intimate affair, as befitted the delicate nature of the question before them. Madam Bones presided over the head of the long polished table, an assistant hovering sycophantically at one elbow. Her look pierced Severus with intelligent scrutiny, as though she would pull back his clothes – indeed, his very skin – to get at the naked truth of the matter.

Dumbledore himself sat at her other elbow. Whether he was there as a representative of the court, the school, the defendant, the plaintiff _in absentia,_ or some incestuous combination thereof, Severus had no idea.

At the foot of the table, the parents and their solicitor clustered claustrophobically around the girl, hiding her from view any time they leaned over her to whisper in one another's ear. The mother kept flexing her white-knuckled hand, as if itching to grasp a wand that had been confiscated at the beginning of the hearing.

And there in the middle, somehow apart from it all, was the girl.

His student.

And she looked so small.

Madam Bones spoke first. "Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Snape. Would you please state your name, title, and connection to the defendant, for record?"

Severus turned to face her slowly. "Professor Severus Tobias Snape, Potions Master Class III and Head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The defendant is a 6th-year student in my House."

"And she's been under your care and instruction since you took your position at Hogwarts?"

"That is correct."

"And this is a position you took up approximately eight months ago, at the behest of – "

But Dumbledore leaned forward and whispered something in Madam Bones' ear. The witch nodded several times, her brow furrowed slightly as she filed away whatever need-to-know piece of information Dumbledore offered about the circumstances of his hire last September the first.

Severus drummed his fingers impatiently on the table as the silence buzzed oppressively around the room.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, his expression somber, and Madam Bones turned to Severus again.

"You've submitted an official statement to the court. However, there are a few points I'd like for you to clarify. For instance, you stated that you were not in the office at the time of the incident?"

"That is correct," Severus lied. "I was returning to the Castle, to my office, after the Quidditch match."

She gave him that piercing look again. "Alone?" Madam Bones asked.

His lip curled. "I'm not ordinarily in need of an escort to walk across the grounds of my own place of employment."

"There's no need to be testy, Mr. Snape. The court is merely trying to ascertain the facts – it would seem odd for you to be alone, given that the match had just ended. Weren't others leaving the match, as well?"

"Ah. I should clarify – the match was not over, entirely. It was merely over for Slytherin. We were over 200 points down, and I didn't feel there was a point to my continued presence."

"Can anyone corroborate this?"

"I suppose the court might call Mr. Wagtail, the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, to testify. I, for one, would be interested to hear why our Chasers exhibited such appalling lack of coordination."

Severus saw Madam Bones mouth tighten. To her left, Dumbledore rolled his eyes.

" _Thank you_ , Mr. Snape. According to your statement, it was upon your return to the Castle, to the Dungeons, that you noticed something amiss?"

"That is correct."

Madam Bones adjusted her glasses. "And what happened?"

"I heard screaming."

Screaming echoing grotesquely through the dungeon. Screaming crawling under his skin, infecting him with its panic. Not just the girl shrieking her head off, but the boy, too. It seemed impossible that something in that contorted bag of flesh could still scream, but it had. It had screamed and screamed and _screamed_.

He could smell it all of the sudden, a slaughterhouse stench of iron and shit. Of blood and burning hair and the taint of Dark Magic.

"So, naturally, you went in the direction of that sound?" Madam Bones prompted.

"Naturally," he affirmed.

"And what did you find?"

"I found the defendant and the plaintiff alone in an empty classroom, considerably worse for the wear after an apparent magical altercation."

"How did Miss Scrivener appear?"

Severus cocked his head minutely. "Excuse me?"

"I'm given to understand she was dressed provocatively, that she'd been drinking. Did the defendant appear intoxicated?"

"The defendant appeared _bloody_ , Madam Bones. I did not stop to smell her breath, nor measure the length of her skirt."

"What _did_ you stop to do?"

"I cast a Stasis Charm around the plaintiff, Mr. -. Then I –"

"Mr. -?" Madam Bones interrupted. "Did you know it was him at the time?"

"Excuse me – I cast a Stasis Charm around the bloody mass I _now_ know, but did not _then_ know, to be Mr. -."

"Why a Stasis Charm?"

"I was rather preoccupied with the welfare of my student, and did not feel I had the time to identify the curse and apply the appropriate counter-curse."

"And that curse was…" Madam Bones trailed off to shuffle through the papers before her. At her elbow, the assistant scribbled furiously on his piece of parchment.

"…The Entrail-Expelling Curse?" she finished, raising her head to look sharply at the girl.

Severus heard the mother huff in an agitated manner.

Madam Bones spoke directly to the girl, now. "That is a very Dark spell indeed, Miss Scrivener. Very Dark."

The girl shifted minutely, tucking a lock of dirty-blonde hair behind her ear in a youthful – and somehow oddly endearing – gesture.

At least the girl wasn't carrying on. She merely looked pale and scarcely there at all. It was a look Severus had seen before, many times, usually worn by some unfortunate victim of Bellatrix's. After enough torture, one was emptied of everything – secrets, dignity, will to live. All that remained was a kind of dim surprise that one was alive at all.

That's how the girl looked, dimly surprised.

And small.

So small.

When Madam Bones spoke again, she sounded mournful. "Why _that_ spell, Miss Scrivener? Surely, something else would have been sufficient for self-defense? _Expelliarmus? Petrificus Totalus?"_

At this point the solicitor leaned past the girl with a scandalized look, one he'd probably practiced in the mirror at least three times that morning.

"This line of questions is entirely inappropriate! The defendant was being _raped_ , Madam Bones – _raped_. Surely the court doesn't expect – "

Madam Bones held up her hand to silence him. "The court does not dispute that this may be true. But–"

The solicitor continued: " _May_ be true? You and I both know the statutory definition places too great a burden on –"

"But," repeated Madam Bones more loudly. "The statute is not at issue here today, nor is Mr. - on trial for sexual assault. I will point out, yet again, that the defense waived that right when agreeing to sit down for a plea arrangement. The purpose of this meeting is to review the events, and the court will decide what – if any – clemency is warranted in this case."

" _Clemency_? This is an open-and-shut case of self-defense – it's all there in the medical examiner's report," the solicitor spat, and send a folio of parchment zooming before Madam Bones with his wand.

Madam Bones fixed the solicitor with a stern look. "I have my own copy, sir, thank you. This is the same medical report which states that there was no semen present, yes?"

At this point the mother exploded. She stood up so swiftly that her chair fell behind her with a wooden _thwack_ , then thrust a finger accusingly at Dumbledore. " _He_ is the one who let that filthy Mudblood into the school in the first place. And now you're telling me that because that half-breed didn't get a chance to ejaculate into my daughter, you refuse to believe she was justified in cursing him?!"

Severus privately felt this protective maternal ire was rather ironic. The parents had both been off at some party, drunk, when the incident occurred. It had taken him hours to track them down.

"Please do not use that word in my presence, Madam," Dumbledore retorted sharply. "Whatever Mr. - did or did not do, he has suffered immensely, and continues to suffer. This is why we are holding this meeting in his absence, because he may never again leave St. Mungo's."

"Indeed," clipped Madam Bones. "This is a very serious crime your daughter has admitted to. My predecessor – Mr. Crouch – would have dispensed with a trial entirely."

This last part was true enough.

The mother sat down, fuming. The girl looked ready to faint. Severus checked his pocket-watch, which read a quarter to one. This had eaten up his entire morning.

Madam Bones sniffed. "The objection by the defense has been noted. I will ask Miss Scrivener again: Why – why did you use _that_ curse?"

What little color in the girl's face drained. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled noise came out.

"Perhaps some water," suggested Madam Bones, not entirely unkindly. "We will wait while you collect yourself."

The girl was led out of the room by her father. Dumbledore leaned to Madam Bones' ear again and began whispering.

"I have something to add," Severus said suddenly. Dumbledore shot him a sharp look above his half-moon spectacles – a warning look.

Severus offered a level gaze back, meeting the eye of the man who'd offered him salvation.

"Yes, Mr. Snape?" Madam Bones prompted.

Fuck salvation.

Severus leaned forward, placed his elbows on the table, and spoke to Madam Bones: "I wish only to state, for the record, that Miss Scrivener's conduct has been nothing short of exemplary since I began my tenure at Hogwarts," he lied smoothly.

He continued: "The defendant's actions were those of a terrified young woman defending herself against a brutal attack, and not a slave to the Dark. She is a credit to her House and her school. Any intimation otherwise – any intimation that she is something other than the victim in this situation – is absurd. Absurd, offensive, and nothing more than a product of…"

He met Dumbledore's eyes again and thought about the moment the Headmaster had sworn his teenaged self to secrecy so many years ago.

"…bias," he finished silkily.

Severus had nearly been ripped to pieces by a werewolf, and for the love of his precious Gryffindors, Dumbledore had hushed everything up.

He saw Dumbledore sigh minutely.

The Headmaster deserved this. It had been a long time coming.

Madam Bones leaned forward with interest. "Bias, Mr. Snape?"

"Yes."

"And whom, precisely, are you accusing of bias? The school? This court?"

"I believe both the school and the Ministry are very keen to kill this in its crib. I believe this is, indeed, an open-and-shut case. I believe there is a precedent – an entirely unfair precedent – whereby members of my House are treated as Death Eaters-in-waiting rather than the children that they are."

Madam Bones looked slightly flustered. "Death Eaters? Nobody has mentioned Death Eaters, nor You-Know-Who. The war is over, Mr. Snape, and the Wizarding Community is ready to move on."

"There is a curse scar on Miss Scrivener's thigh which would suggest otherwise."

Madam Bones held his gaze for a moment, then shuffled through the parchment before her, presumably the medical report. "A curse scar? I see no record of this."

"Regardless, it exists."

She looked across the table at the girl's mother and the solicitor. "Is this true?"

Severus beat both to an answer: "It is entirely true. I have seen it myself. The boy Marked the defendant, making it entirely clear that Miss Scrivener was, indeed, attacked – and not for anything she had done, but for what her Pure-Blood status and Hogwarts House represented to the boy."

Dumbledore leaned forward to whisper something in Madam Bones' ear, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Please describe the scar, Mr. Snape."

"It is a crude imitation of the Dark Mark, along with a derogatory term for a woman."

"What term?"

"Slut."

"And it is your belief that the plaintiff, Mr. -, is responsible for this Mark?"

"Yes."

"We'll want a picture of that, for the record," Madam Bones commented to her clerk, who nodded and scribbled on his parchment again.

She turned back to Severus. "Very well. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Snape. You may leave."

Severus dipped his head, grabbed his cloak, and left. He could feel Dumbledore's eyes following him with that now-familiar look of fatherly disappointment, of paternal regret.

He bumped into the girl in the corridor outside the door – literally _bumped_ into her. She'd been standing like an inanimate object in the middle of the hall, looking dazed and lost and small.

He remembered her suddenly as a wide-eyed first year, some little girl he'd seen across the Common Room when he was in his 7th year, mere months from being Marked himself. He hadn't known her name then, or anything about her.

Now he knew much, much more than he cared to.

She muttered something that might have been "sorry," but otherwise reacted so little to the stimulus that he found himself wondering if they'd plied her with Relaxing Potions to get her through the trial. He stared at her a moment more, realizing that her father was nowhere in sight – indeed, _nobody_ was in sight – and struggled with a sudden and baffling sense of guilt.

Well, perhaps it wasn't _entirely_ baffling.

He ignored the corner of his conscience that insisted on making him responsible for every misfortune everywhere, and stared at the girl a moment longer. He remembered her standing in that empty classroom mere weeks ago, blood splatter on her face, in her hair, blood running down the inside of her thigh, and screaming. Screaming and screaming.

He remembered the knickers twisted around her ankles.

They'd been pink.

The same color as the coils of intestine her rapist had vomited up.

As Severus stared at the girl, so small and still and vacant, he found he could hardly believe what she'd done to that boy. He _wouldn't_ believe it, had he not personally witnessed the effects in all their nauseating glory.

Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps that was why they had plied her with Relaxing Potions.

Severus snapped his fingers three inches from her face to see if that got any reaction.

To his immense surprise, she looked up at him and frowned faintly. "I'm not a dog."

He frowned right back, ignoring the way the hairs on his neck pricked unpleasantly. "Where the devil is your father, girl?"

"I don't know," she said vaguely. "Getting water or something."

"I assume he'll be returning?"

She shrugged.

An inexplicable sense of uncertainty coiled around Severus, which irritated him immensely. Was he supposed to wait with her? Go find her miserable father? Simply leave?

Then, before he could actually come to a decision, she turned to him and spoke: "May I go wait by the window?"

Severus very nearly asked her why in God's name she was asking him, but remembered at the last moment that he was the adult and she was the student.

 _His_ student.

His responsibility.

And she'd been raped on his watch.

He cleared his throat and nodded, and so she took one wobbly step down the hall.

Before he really knew what he was doing, he'd curled his hand around her upper arm to steady her. She did not stiffen or flinch or draw away from him, so he left his hand there and led her down the hall to the window. In their nearness, he realized she smelled faintly sweet, like lemons and sugar. The skin of her arm, bare against his palm, felt soft and creamy and smooth, which surprised him for some reason.

So clean and unblemished. So young.

Then they were at the end of the hall and he snatched his hand back before he could think any more about her skin, or her smell, or why she was making him, a grown man and an ex-Death Eater, so fucking uncomfortable.

Ignorant of his inner turmoil, the girl opened the window and leaned against the ledge. She stared sadly into the distance, rather like a caged bird regards the sky. The breeze feathered gently through her hair, sending a fresh wave of sweet citrus his way.

"I am leaving," Severus announced with sudden and unnecessary force.

"Bye," she said indifferently.

* * *

Severus spent the rest of the summer decontaminating Spinner's end and hoping against hope that the girl wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts for her 7th year.

His father had finally drunk himself to death, and so there was the matter of burning everything he'd ever lay his filthy hands on to keep Severus occupied. He had been methodical in his purging – combing over every square inch of the place – so it was surprising to find the revolver on August 28th, just hours before he was due back at Hogwarts.

It fit easily in his grip, like the handshake of an old friend. The gunmetal winked knowingly at him in the light.

It was an old thought that had occurred to Severus, then. A thought that had been his shadow for many years, always waiting, never far behind.

After all, what did he owe the world?

And what had the world ever offered him, beyond the certainty that everything was completely fucked, and never had been, or would ever be, even remotely okay?

A tremor of intent shook his hand and the revolver dropped to the floor.

Severus left it where it lay and strode out the door to the Apparition point without stopping.

* * *

**A/N** \- Thanks for reading. If the premise appeals to you, check out my other fic, _Bartleby_.


End file.
